


Cartography of a Fist

by mautadite



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Light Bondage, Post-Game(s), Sea Voyages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:35:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3699332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I thought I said all hands on deck.”</p><p>“Deck? Is that what we’re calling it now?”</p><p>(Hawke and Isabela on the Eastern Seas, post game.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cartography of a Fist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [todisturbtheuniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/gifts).



> Alternatively: “For Keeps”. I haven’t read the books or comics; pray forgive any inaccuracies born out of not being familiar with them. Here is a [map](http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100721040624/dragonage/images/8/80/ThedasMap.jpg), for reference.
> 
> All your prompts were wonderful, but like you said, never enough Hawke/Isabela. :) Hope you enjoy. <3

_Hercinia_

Hawke has learnt, by now, how to stay neatly out of the way while Isabela is in full captain mode, surveying her ship with hands firmly on her hips and bellowing out orders. It’s an easy matter to slip out of view, swing up onto the shitdeck (Hawke refuses to call it by that other name, no matter what the first mate says; they’re all adults here) and observe from there. Isabela has the hands holystoning the deck and a few mates checking the sails while she listens to the results of the inventory check from Ferdinand. They may have to stay on a bit longer to shift the weight of their cargo, but Hawke hopes not. She’s ready to leave this city. 

It’s a blazing hot day, and Hawke doesn’t envy the hands, running up and down the deck. Hercinia, in the distance, looks like a collection of glittering stones against the backdrop of the low mountains behind it. They’ve been long here, getting the supplies and hands that Isabela needs for the Siren’s Call II. After this… Hawke isn’t too much bothered by the details of their next destination. Once it’s away from the Free Marshes, and with Isabela. 

Pride is nowhere to be seen; probably after the cook again, spoiled thing. Hawke reclines, shading her eyes from the sun, and that is, of course, when a shadow falls over her. She smiles. 

“Just who I was looking for. Little to the left, if you would be so kind?”

Isabela chuckles, and does no such thing, of course; she sits cross-legged next to Hawke.

“If you’re not careful, we’re going to find that dog in our stew one morning,” she comments. Hawke peels an eye open.

“Has Sugarhead been complaining?”

“No, the exact opposite, in fact. He loves that hound. Too much. I’d be suspicious, if I were you.”

Her voice is dead serious, but her eyes say she’s teasing. Hawke snorts.

“Pride can take care of herself. I’d worry about your cook, if I were you.”

She squirms, moving about until her head is lying in Isabela’s lap, receiving both the benefit of soft thighs and shelter from the sun. Isabela laughs again, a light-hearted sound that makes something move in Hawke’s heart, something dangerously close to sentimentalism. It does her good to hear that sound.

“Why do I always find your lazy arse planted on top of here?” Isabela wonders. Her fingers are lightly raking through Hawke’s hair. “I thought I said all hands on deck.”

“Deck? Is that what we’re calling it now? Well, if you like…”

And her fingers make light circles on Isabela’s stomach, moving slowly and carefully up to her chest. It’s a short journey; her hands are slapped away halfway up, and her fingers twisted back playfully. She can’t complain; Isabela is laughing again and the sound carries over the deck, towards the sea.

*

_Llomerryn_

The raiders slip by them in the dark. Hawke and Isabela remain draped in the shadows, leaning against the wall of the little alleyway. It’s a few more minutes before the last of the footsteps fade away, and Hawke feels safe enough to check that the coast is clear. That done, she throws an incredulous look back at Isabela.

“Well. They _really_ don’t like you.”

All that merits is a shrug, and a smile that shows its shape by the glint of teeth and the tilt of her head.

“How was I supposed to know that they’d hold such a grudge?” she says as she slips the key into her bosom.

“And are we really sure that they’re the best people to be stealing from?”

“Sweetness, they’re the _only_ people worth stealing from; you can take my word for that.”

That, Hawke can accept easily enough. They’re raiders. Stealing from raiders can’t be that much of a sin. A reverse sin. Practically a good deed, when you thought about it. And it would be a queer turn, to start worrying about morals in Llomerryn of all places, and being who she is, of all people.

“Aye aye, captain,” Hawke says, and kisses her briefly on the cheek before she gestures her on. They’ve still a long way to go to the docks, and there’s work yet to be done on the island. The raiders will be out in their numbers, searching for them, but more still will be sent to guard the warehouse whose key Isabela had none too nimbly stolen at the alehouse. Just as well; Isabela and Hawke and the crew will be down at the caves, pilfering from their other stash.

“Stop your grousing,” Isabela says near her ear as they duck down another side-street. There’s piss and wine on the air, and a group of men are belting out a bawdy song from some nearby tavern.

“What?” Hawke raises her brows. “I’m not grousing.”

“I could practically hear you in my head,” she drawls. “Don’t worry, I’m sure there’ll be a light guard down at the caves, you’ll get to knock in all the heads you like.”

“Yay,” Hawke says happily before she can stop herself.

Isabela hops onto a crate, and reaches down to give Hawke a hand up.

“Honestly. What kind of rogue doesn’t like a bit of cloak and dagger, sneaking around, making love to the shadows?”

Hawke shrugs. “A bad one, I suspect.”

“Oho, you said it, not me, Champion,” says Isabela, smirking as she vaults up to the rooftop of an abandoned building, hauling herself up in three graceful movements. She waits until Hawke is beside her to pat her smartly on the cheek. “I think I’ll keep you anyway.”

“Lucky me.” Isabela slinks along the rooftop, and Hawke follows smoothly. It makes for a pleasant change of pace, she’s found, after all that time traipsing around Kirkwall and the Free Marshes, building a legacy and a life, doing good and fucking up (ultimately more of the former, she’d like to think). She’d led her companions through seven years of turmoil, through the darkest parts of the Deep Roads, along the crags and cliffs of the Wounded Coast. It’s nice to be doing the following, for a change. 

Bela’s mentioned it jokingly, says that Hawke’s enamoured of the view more than anything else. But it’s more than that. After the Arishok, after she came back… Hawke isn’t sure if Isabela always knows it, but Hawke has a lot of faith in her. She might be as changing as the winds, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? At sea, the wind is one of the few things that’ll keep you moving forward. 

To the docks, then, and down to the caves afterwards. Isabela leads them forward on light feet, and Hawke follows doggedly after.

*

_Afsaana_

“Say ahhh.”

“Ahhh.”

Whatever is popped into her mouth is hot and crispy, with the tang of star anise and clove and a few other spices she can’t name. Hawke is only able to identify the first two thanks to Isabela, who has been feeding her delicious things ever since they dropped anchor and strolled into the Afsaana marketplace earlier this morning. The rules are that she’s not allowed to ask names, nor ask what’s in it until she’s already swallowed. She’d tied her hair back, made the inevitable dirty joke, and placed herself into Isabela’s capable hands.

She chews thoughtfully.

“I like it better than the fluffy thing with the cream, but not as much as the little rice things with all the cinnamon.”

Isabela wrinkles her nose, though she looks pleased. 

“Maybe I should take back the rule about not asking the names.”

“I don’t know. We should just stick to having me destroy the actual food with my mouth.”

A sigh. “You are so very Fereldan.”

“I do try for consistency.”

Hawke keeps an eye on her as they stroll through the pristine market streets, Pride trotting happily at their heels. Women hawk their wares loudly from behind their stalls, jewellery winking from their ears and lips and hands and cheeks. Goods of every kind are on display; rich fabrics, baubles of varying worth, footwear and headwear, weaponry, potions, a vast array of herbal remedies, talismans and amulets, and of course, the food. The heat of the cook fires comingle to create a warmth in the air that is just short of too much. Hawke had started the day wearing a cheap doublet; she’d traded it not too long ago for cool drinks that tasted of coconuts.

Isabela seems her usual self. Hawke has been waiting for… something to happen, ever since they sighted mainland Rivain. It doesn’t seem like it’s coming. They would sell some things, buy some things, spend a little time, and then they’d be off. That was the plan, according to Isabela. 

The mother that she speaks of rarely lives much further inland, Hawke knows, and there’s not much danger of sighting her here. Down at the docks, Isabela had been recognised and hailed by a few sailors, and she’s been nodded to by a few of the market-women, but otherwise, they make their way through the flowing crowd unmolested.

Pride keeps making as if to run off behind some interesting scent or other; Hawke whistles her back in sharply as Isabela veers left, ducks under some low hanging bolts of cloth, and leads her down a street where a couple is frying up what look to be hotcakes of some kind. Isabela orders three of them.

“You didn’t say how long,” Hawke mentions as they wait.

“Hm?”

“You said _what_ you’d like to do in Afsaana, but depending on how much cargo we’ll be getting rid of and how much we’ll be taking on, it could take anywhere between an afternoon and a week.”

Isabela raises her brows. 

“A day or two, I’d thought. Why? Don’t tell me you want to stay longer.”

“Depends. A girl could get used to being pampered like this.”

Isabela laughs as they’re handed their food, placed on waxy paper and apparently to be eaten with the hands, like most of the street food in the market. Hawke can see the honey they drizzled over the top, smell the liberal shavings of ginger that were sprinkled in, and she almost burns her fingers tearing off a corner of the hotcake. Isabela laughs again, and nips the morsel right out of her hand. She blows on it until it’s cool enough to place on the tip of Hawke’s tongue.

“Likewise,” she says, winking. “I think I’m _already_ used to leading you around and feeding you from my hand. Get you a decent outfit, and you’ll be a proper girltoy.” 

“Once it shows my delicate ankles to advantage, I can’t imagine I’ll have any complaints.” The cake is soft and buttery and rich with flavour, and the sentence comes out with a few satisfied moans around it.

They continue their walk through the market, eating as they go. Hawke throws down bites of the hotcakes to an eager Pride, which Isabela shakes her head at, but doesn’t comment upon. She’s quiet, mostly, unless she’s pointing out an interesting item to Hawke, or snickering briefly at something behind her hand before she tilts her head to share the jest. Hawke listens to every little titbit she’s given, and those she’s not given, too.

“You _like_ this city,” she says curiously, after Isabela is done explaining the nature of the goddess depicted in a small statuette. The goddess of rivers, she’d named her. Isabela hadn’t grown up here, Hawke knows, from what she’s been able to piece together. She’d been born in Dairsmuid, and made frequent trips to the north in childhood, mostly because of her mother. But while this city seems to have nothing of Isabela inherent in it (too clean, too demure, too proper) she seems to have left pieces of herself behind.

Isabela glances sidelong at her, scoffing slightly. But there’s something of a smile to the cant of her lips. She reaches around and pinches her on the ass, neither confirming nor denying anything.

“Come along, Hawke. Let’s find something useful for you to do with your mouth again.”

*

_Rialto_

The captain’s quarters are the only place that Isabela likes doing this. Perhaps it makes the game sweeter to her. Hawke would chuckle at the irony, but she’s invariably always busier with something else that occupies her time and her energy.

Tonight, she’s doing up the knots. She’s terrible at them, as a matter of course; they were the first things Isabela had had to teach her to do, after she’d straightened it out which one was larboard and which one was starboard. It was a lesson she insisted on.

“What kind of pirate can’t tie a good knot?” Isabela had chastised.

“The bad kind, I suspect.”

“Oh, poor dear. I think I’ll keep you anyway.”

At sea, the ground is never quite steady, even when the anchor’s been dropped and the hands are all asleep or on shore. There’s a festival in Rialto tonight, and the lights are visible from the ship, bathing the town and the waters in their multi-coloured glow. It would be visible from the porthole, if Hawke had an eye for anything other than Isabela tonight.

She’s secured her to the bedpost by her hands and feet, and as always, she starts at her thighs. She loves Isabela’s thighs. Strong, shapely, thick, and covered in freckles. Hawke has seen her kill a man with these thighs, seen her leap distances that should be impossible for her frame, seen her take strides with a swagger that’s like to eat up the earth beneath her.

Right now, her thighs are bare and spread, and Hawke is on a mission to kiss every single freckle that covers them. It’s a job she’s tried her hand at before; she always gets lost somewhere in the sixties, because that’s usually when Isabela will start to writhe in earnest, curse her for being in incurable tease. She can’t help it. Hawke likes to take her time; pressing her fingers into the skin, trailing her lips and tongue over each mark and scar, travelling the road between her knees and her cunt over and over.

“Fuck me,” Isabela demands, lifting her head to try to get a better view. Hawke continues to nose gently behind her patella, and then makes a slow sweep with her tongue up to the crease of her hip and thigh, coming close, but not quite there.

“Make me,” she says lazily, sliding her hands up under Isabela’s ass and sucking at her hipbone. They both know Isabela could be out of her bonds in a thrice if she actually wanted to. 

Isabela pouts.

“Why do I have to do all the work?”

Hawke chuckles, running her lips further up her stomach. She’s soft and firm here in equal measure, and Hawke strokes her fingers down her sides just for the pleasure of seeing Isabela arch slightly, moving with the touch. Her nipples, sensitive as always, have been hard since Hawke helped peel her out of her clothes, and they still are now, begging to be touched. Hawke crawls up her body, and hovers with her mouth over her breasts, not touching, barely breathing. She watches the gooseflesh come to life on the brown skin, right before her eyes. It’s a sight sweeter than any sunrise.

Isabela shifts impatiently in place. Hawke looks down and sees that her thighs are pressed together as best as she can, twisting and rubbing as she tries to stimulate herself, thoroughly unashamed. The sight is all the more arousing for it. Hawke watches her for a spell before she slips a thigh between Isabela’s and earns herself a hot glare. Isabela tugs at her restraints, but not hard enough.

“I know, I know, you hate me,” Hawke says, laughing at her look. She fetches Isabela a quick kiss on the lips that she can’t help but turn into a deeper one, especially with Isabela writhing up against her like that. It’s a languid kiss, for all that Isabela tries to speed it up. The taste of her is dizzying, and Hawke wants to savour it.

Her hands move to Isabela’s chest, cupping each dusk-tipped breast before kissing them both. She knows what she likes. Hawke sucks at the tips, scraping them with her teeth with the barest amount of force, and Bela sighs like a maiden on her first night.

There goes the dance, all the way down her body, slow and sharp by turns. She kisses each stretch mark, draws out the lingering hurt of each bruise, drinks up the tale of each pock-marked scar. By the time she’s between her lover’s legs, breath fanning across her vulva, Isabela is breathing hard, rolling her hips in keen desire to be closer, closer. The sheet beneath her cunt is soaked through.

Hawke spreads her lips, kisses her clit once, and feels Isabela give a long, shudder-like sigh. That’s all she gives her though, light, spare kisses, and by the time Hawke twists two fingers into her Isabela is writhing and near drunk with desire. Hawke rubs her stomach with her free hand, around her hipbones and navel and all the little good spots, and gives her another finger, fucking her slow but hard. Isabela moans her name, and by the time she comes, a beautiful age later, the syllables have all slurred together, drowned in salt water. Hawke strokes her all through it, feeling her clench down on her fingers with the sway of the ship.

“Oh, sweetness,” Isabela sighs, and it makes Hawke heat up all the more.

As soon as she’s able, she’s shedding her smallclothes, leaning up to kiss Bela in answer to the want in her eyes. Hawke crawls up the bed and hovers astride her face, and only realises that Isabela has gotten free of her bonds when she tugs her down with a shark jerk. Her fingers slide up and down Hawke’s ribs, playing them like some Antivan string. Making Isabela come is always a high in and of itself, and it only takes a few minutes of that warm mouth on her, licking into her, before she’s climaxing with a drawn out groan.

She lies stretched out on the bed, catching her breath, while Isabela takes care of her other restraints. Then she curls closer, and Hawke checks her bruises, kisses each one.

*

_Amaranthine_

The bay is still a ways off, but from a distance Hawke can see her lights, the vague outlines of ships bobbing in the breeze near the docks, tall structures that look tiny in her eyes. Amaranthine had been brought low in the aftermath of the Blight – they’d heard the tales even in Kirkwall – but she seems to be thriving once more. 

Pride is napping amidst a coil of ropes. Hawke scratches her behind the ear absently as she looks over the prow. They’re approaching steadily, the waves frothing up and parting as they advance. 

Isabela, leaning against the side, takes a long, deep breath.

“Ah… I can smell the wet dog already.”

Hawke laughs, patting Pride’s flank.

“Careful. She might think you’re trying to give her a compliment on the sly.”

Isabela snorts, pure inelegance. “I’d like to think she’s gotten to know me well enough to know that I would never do an absurd thing like that. Compliment, indeed.”

She maintains her post, hip cocked to the side as she surveys the waters. Hawke watches with her. It’ll be their first time on the mainland in many moons, and Hawke’s first time in Ferelden in many years. It doesn’t quite feel like coming home. She feels nothing for Amaranthine, and the Lothering she knew is gone, a patch of scorched and diseased earth miles and miles away. Home is for the house in Hightown, with Beth’s letters, Gamling visiting every now and then, and the room she still can’t bear to enter.

But there are memories here, good ones, and she finds that they don’t hurt upon examination.

Isabela turns to face her, legs crossed, elbows cocked back on the gunwale. She heaves a satisfied breath.

“We did it. We made the fist.”

Hawke arches a brow. “We what?”

“Made the fist.” Isabela demonstrates briefly, curling her fingers over her thumb. “It’s an old pirate saying. Probably originated on Llomerryn, because where else? To christen a new ship, you’ve got to successfully put in at five ports, and survive all the battles and skirmishes that come in between. If you survive that, then you’ve made the fist, and it proves that you’re strong, strong enough to weather the storms that will come.” She nods at the approaching city. “Amaranthine is our little finger.”

Hawke murmurs thoughtfully. She hadn’t really realised it, what with all they’ve had to do and see. Five ports don’t seem like much, but there’s been a lot of distance between them, miles to cover, official vessels to dodge, skirmishes on the high seas. The months have been bleeding together; soon, it’ll be a year since they left Kirkwall behind them.

“Oi.” Hawke looks up; Isabela is squinting at her. “What’s wrong with you? It’s like you weren’t listening. Do I have to make the fisting joke for myself?”

Hawke bursts out laughing. “Well, you’re already halfway there, you might as well do it. You know I’ve no wit to spare of an evening.”

“Ugh. Slave driver.” She’s smiling, though.

Hawke moves over to stand next to her. The wind is whipping her hair about, making the dark strands catch on her cheeks and lips. The crew is moving around in the background, but Isabela usually doesn’t mind public affection, once it’s brief. Hawke uses a single finger to gather all the stray tresses, and tuck them behind Bela’s ears. After a moment, Isabela tilts her head to facilitate her, eyes closed against the wind. Her face and chest are wet from the spray, her muscles slack in contentment, and Hawke can’t think of any place she’d prefer to be.

“Where to after this?” she asks, pulling back. “What’s going to be our second thumb?”

Isabela shrugs, not opening her eyes just yet. But she bumps their hips together, to show she’s listening.

“Oh... anywhere.”

Hawke grins, though she can’t see it. Anywhere sounds good.


End file.
